Sometimes a commission comes along that is a bit different than most other things that come our way. This one came about as we were originally commissioned to do a picture for someone’s 40th birthday present but it didn’t quite work out that way. The recipient is a big music fan and somehow this commission morphed from some kind of music themed painting to a framed set of no. 1 singles from important times in his life (birth, his 18th, his 21st and his 40th birthday).

The records in question are ‘Grandad‘ by Clive Dunn (1971), ‘Especially for you‘ by Kylie and Jason (1989), ‘Bohemian Rhapsody‘ by Queen (1992) and ‘Grenade‘ by Bruno Mars (2011). Perhaps the most challenging bit for this was, surprisingly, coming up with a version of Grenade that we could get framed. Despite the fact that it is still in the charts, it was only released on mp3 so for a while it was looking like some kind of cover mock up would be necessary until one of our friends who works in the music industry managed to save the day and come up with this radio promo CD single version. Even though it was a different size to the other singles at least we managed to get a proper version.

The frame is easily opened from the back should the need arise for these to be played. Maybe at his 50th…